Atlantic Coal-Ship Rates Touch 2013 Low on Colombia Mine Strike

Hire costs for Capesize ships, the
biggest coal carriers, for voyages in the Atlantic region
touched this year’s low as a strike in Colombia curbed exports
of the commodity.

Daily charter rates for the vessels in the Atlantic area
fell 4.4 percent to $4,905, the lowest since Dec. 21, figures
from the London-based Baltic Exchange showed today. Average
Capesize hire costs declined 3.1 percent to $5,216 a day,
capping a 23 percent weekly drop, the biggest since December.

Ten coal shipments totaling 900,000 metric tons were
canceled this week because of a strike at Colombia’s Cerrejon
mine, Coal Marketing Co., the exclusive shipper of the site’s
production, said Feb. 19. Disruptions are preventing 84 percent
of shipments from the country, the source of 29 percent of
Europe’s power-station coal, Deutsche Bank AG said Feb. 20.

“Strikes in Colombia resulted in a very slow week for
transatlantic routes and led to a large fall in rates,” Braemar
Seascope Ltd., a London-based shipbroker, said in an e-mailed
report yesterday.

The Baltic Dry Index, a broader measure of shipping costs,
gained 0.4 percent to 740 on stronger hire rates for the three
classes of smaller vessels tracked by the gauge. The index’s
average in 2012 was the lowest in 26 years as the fleet of
commodity ships expanded amid slowing cargo demand.

Daily average charter rates for Panamaxes, the largest
vessels to navigate the Panama Canal, gained 2 percent to $7,253
and Supramaxes that are about 25 percent smaller climbed 1.6
percent to $7,494, according to the exchange. Handysizes, the
smallest ships in the index, rose 0.2 percent to $6,127.